What is wrong with the status quo? Everyone in California who wants pot can legally get it by going to a doctor and making up a symptom and it makes it slightly harder for children to get pot. This prop is only going to force the federal government to either crack down or stop enforcing pot laws. My guess is that they will choose to crack down.
This is exactly what I don’t like about the status quo: the pretext that anything medical is going on. Legalize it, ban it altogether, but let’s stop all the “care collective” “I get headaches” “advil won’t work for me” nonsense.
Aren’t people in favor of this proposition more likely to forget about voting? Has that been calculated for?
:dubious:
Jokes aside, I think the passage of this prop is really going to depend on mobilizing the youth vote. If a lot of young people get out and vote (that is, relative to the normal low turnout of young voters) the way they did in the last presidential election, it has a very real chance.
Rock the uh… what’s it called? The thing… rock the… shit. What are we rocking?
OH! Rock the vote, man. Rock the vote.
What would be the political ramifications of the Obamanizer coming out in favor you think?
I don’t think he would since he’s already said he’s against legalization. But if by some chance he had a change of heart? Well, the Repubs would of course demonize him but they already do that plenty - and it could actually increase his support among his base. So, it probably couldn’t hurt.
Obama’s best move, politically speaking, would probably be to invoke states’ rights. This would let him effectively support the measure in California without going against his prior anti-legalization stance, and would also put the Republicans in the no-win situation of either agreeing with him, or going against their own pet states’-rights causes.
Of course, whether he actually takes this position will probably depend on his own personal ideology.
In invoking states’ rights, it helps to remember that state narcotics laws predate the federal law in many cases, and nowhere more so than with respect to marijuana and California. California enacted its own pot ban in 1915 or thereabouts. Most federal law enforcement addresses international smuggling or criminal acts that involve crossing internal state lines. Simple possession and use of MJ, in my non-legal opinion doesn’t meet this standard, notwithstanding tortuous arguments to the contrary that have been successful in court. For example in Gonzalez v. Raich (545 U.S. 1; 125 S. Ct. 2195), in 2005, the SCOTUS held, in effect, that since personal cultivation eased the demand for MJ in the local illicit market, it would lower prices thus affecting interstate commerce. From there it’s not a stretch to say that the drug dealers, deprived of their adult customers, would perforce focus on the kids as their primary prospects.
Only by refuting convoluted arguments successfully in court, can the reach of the CSA into people’s closets and back yards be ended. Simply overturning the law itself is most likely a nonstarter, because there are too many conservative sections of the country whose representatives would never allow it.
Still the estimated percentages for support are remarkable. In the hazy, heady early 1970s, when a similar proposition was on the ballot, it lost by a huge margin; now it looks as if the margin will be quite small, win or lose. With that much support for the initiative, I don’t think forgetting to vote will be a problem.
Expand that acronym, please? I don’t think you’re talking about the Confederate States of America.
CSA = Controlled Substances Act
Under the status quo in California, everyone who wants to smoke pot can legally do so. So this proposition seems less about wanting to smoke pot then it is about getting the government to pat you on the head and tell you its fine. If it passes, it forces the federal government into taking a stand. Do California potheads really want to give the voters of Georgia and New Jersey a chance to take away what they already have?
The people who are pushing this don’t seem to be thinking clearly.
You must be expecting a massive national outcry by conservatives in the other 49 states, should the proposition pass. So far we’re not even seeing that from the folks in the conservative areas within California. The only way they could “take away what we already have” would be by fast-tracking legislation at the national level to abrogate the state MMJ laws. I suppose legal “remedies” would also be open to them, but I doubt the average Georgian or New Jerseyite cares that much about a few potheads in California getting their weed legally. I doubt that they would have the numbers to stop that even if the Republicans do pick up a few more seats in November. The issue of legalization doesn’t divide evenly along party lines, which is why the California central committee of the Democratic Party has come out as neutral on Prop. 19. Many Republicans are libertarian-minded and won’t be too eager to cooperate; on the other side, our senator Feinstein and Democratic VP are two of the biggest drug warriors on the planet, yet neither has bothered to comment on the situation in California. To her credit, while I’m sure Feinstein’s no fan of marijuana, she has most famously directed her sights against truly dangerous drugs like illicit methamphetamine.
What I do think we’ll see is that, in some cases, the promoting and sale of legally available pot will go beyond what is considered reasonable in terms of whom the marketing targets and in the amounts produced or sold at a particular location. In situations like this, which are likely to generate community complaints, IMO the Feds would be justified in invoking the interstate commerce clause, and enjoining or closing those “weed shops” from operating. This type of thing has already happened with MMJ dispensaries whose operators were allegedly flouting the state law, although I am not familiar with those cases or the merits thereof.
Wouldn’t Federal law make any legalization on the state level moot and a waste of time?
Strictly speaking, yes, but then by that logic the same is true of the MMJ laws we have now. In fact, if you are charged at the federal level for violating the CSA with respect to MJ, you cannot assert legally that it was for medicinal purposes, since federal law recognizes no medical use. This is even though there are a handful of glaucoma patients who, as the result of an ongoing experiment, have been receiving monthly shipments of pre-rolled joints, courtesy of the U.S. government.
Remember, even in The Netherlands MJ remains technically illegal, or at least the growing of it is. Yet evidently appears to be as good as legal to anyone who wanders into the right kind of Amsterdam coffeeshop. I think the lesson to be learned is that MJ legalization will probably happen, but it won’t look like legalization. Instead, it will be condoned with law enforcement only stepping in where things get out of hand. The result will be de facto legal weed without any politicians having to admit to being soft on drug abuse.
No, because who’s going to enforce it? As pointed out upthread we already have tons (and I do mean tons) of medical marijuana clinics in California that are illegal under federal law. For a time the DEA would come in and raid a clinic here and there (met by heavy protests) but those raids have stopped. It becomes an issue of states’ rights, and do you really think the federal government will want to start a civil war over a few stoners in California?
The change in operations came principally as a result of the change of administration. The DEA still does mount raids on dispensaries, but evidently only in cases where the transactions and production involved go above and beyond what is legally permitted under the state law. For example, under the state law dispensary operators are not supposed to make profits, which is why they usually have names including the word “collective” or “cooperative”. The people who work there don’t quote prices, they ask for “donations” which everyone understands as an amount of money that must be paid for an eigth or quarter ounce of this or that strain. After all, let’s be fair–they have expenses to meet like any other enterprise.
However, if a dispensary operator appears to be waxing rich from doing this, it’s quite likely that the Federal authorities will step in and charge them with trafficking. By contrast, under Bush everyone was fair game.
I find it amazing, too, because now that your generation is sitting in the judge’s seat, from the bench they’re shoving collectivism down our young, capitalistic throats:
Once this law passes, he can go back into his commune chambers and lament the advance of free enterprise as Donovan croons in the background.
Free California!!!
I support Prop 19 and I hope it passes. The fact that marijuana is illegal is illogical to me as tobacco and alcohol are just as dangerous healthwise yet nobody except Sharron Angle and some fanatics on the far right and far left want to get ban them. By legalizing marijuana the state will be able to save quite a lot of money from as others have said both taxing marijuana and not enforcing the current laws. Of course at the same time I think we need to crack down even more harshly on other drugs and break the power of the drug cartels.